Parish Tribute To "Remarkable" Holloway

Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish has wished Ian Holloway well in his future career – and admitted he arrived at the decision to allow him to leave the club “very reluctantly”.

The Eagles co-owner paid tribute to Holloway at a press conference earlier today at the Soho Hotel, in London, where the gaffer’s departure from SE25 was confirmed.

Parish said: “He’s somebody who cares about people, he cares about me, he cares about our football club. Unfortunately things have happened and we both feel a fresh voice at the club might produce better outcomes.

“Ian instigated the initial conversation and certainly from our side, we had no intention and never have had any intention, other than maintaining continuity at the club.

“I was prepared to get relegated with Ian and come back up. The word ‘sacked’ wasn’t even mentioned.

“But Ian felt things at the club weren’t working for him and that a different approach might keep us in the division.”

Parish revealed that Holloway had initiated the talks about his future, which came following the 4-1 defeat to Fulham on Monday night.

The chairman added: “Having arrived at this joint decision very reluctantly and looked at every possible solution during two days chatting about how we could make it work, I’d like to say I’ve enjoyed every minute working with Ian. He’s been fantastic for our club and brought us one of the best days in our history.

“He leaves our club with his head held very high. I think he’s a remarkable man. Somebody who has come forward and done something that most people wouldn’t do and just said ‘we need to talk about the situation, I don’t think it working. You might be better off with someone else.’ And I think it takes an incredibly brave person to do that.

“We’ve never fallen out, we speak every day. On transfer deadline day he rang me 123 times. We’ve worked together brilliantly. But Ian and I feel that we may need to move on to progress and it’s a decision we’ve come to very reluctantly.”